The SD255 has a Raisin Nut Dispenser that automatically adds additional ingredients to your recipe and can also bake gluten free loaves on the Gluten Free Program, using a wide range of gluten free bread mixes and flours. The new Rye Bread program together with its unique mixing blade can create a range of tasty loaves using Rye and Spelt flours

The SD255 has a Super Rapid Option to produce a white or brown loaf in only 1 hour 55 minutes and a Sandwich Option to bake softer bread with a thinner crust - ideal for making perfect sandwiches. This model also features a versatile Dough Option to make dough from white, brown or wholemeal flour for rolls, buns, croissants etc. and a French Dough Option for crusty French sticks.

Additional Features: Bake Only Option for cakes/tea breads Cookery Advice Line.

It’s hard to find a negative comment about the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker. The long-established SD253 model is the one which almost every comparative review named as the best buy for some considerable time. Panasonic replaced this (June 2007) with the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker and for anyone looking for a kitchen bread maker, this remains the model to buy. Panasonic has released two similar models, the SD254 and SD255, the differences being that the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker has an automatic dried fruit and nut dispenser (which saves adding them by hand during baking), and a rye bread mode. Other than that, the two are similar, and share the same instruction manual.

Expect to pay about the same price for both, which is why almost everyone buys the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker. OK, here’s my SD255, freshly delivered from Amazon UK. The machine is cheaper on Amazon at £99, plus you get Amazon’s generally reliable delivery and free shipping.

The breadmaker is simply packed, and comes with the only accessories you really need, a measuring cup and spoon, as well as a pretty decent 36-page A4 instruction manual, which is in English throughout, rather than being a multilingual effort. A big tick for Panasonic there. The manual takes you through the breadmaking process and is easy to understand, explaining the different ingredients and the many alternatives you can use. It’s a nice half-hour’s reading if you can restrain yourself from plugging the unit in and just getting on with it.

But making bread with these sort of breadmaking machines is so absurdly easy that the manual’s authors manage to outline the whole process in a two-page spread. Put the blade in the pan. Measure the ingredients and add them. Select the bread type on the front panel. Select the loaf size, crust colour, and start time. Press the start button. Wait 2-5 hours for the bread to bake. Take it out. And that’s it. The display and control buttons are better laid-out than the old SD253 model which won every group test hands-down in the past. There are six buttons laid out in a row (Select, Option, Size, Crust, Timer and Start) and you just have to go through each, in that order, selecting the desired setting each time. The buttons are clearly labelled in English, with no cryptic icons or symbols - it really looks as if a professional ergonomist has specified the entire operating process, which couldn’t be clearer.

Does it make decent bread? It does. With a bit of trial and error, you will get bread at least as good as the better supermarket stuff, with the added bonus of being able to take it out of the bread maker warm. Smells good already, doesn’t it? If your domestic arrangements are as undisciplined as ours, a breadmaker may save you a lot of money too. Several times a month, a certain member of our household will look at the empty bread bin in the morning and declare: “we’re out of bread - I’ll pop into the supermarket on the way home tonight”. By that evening, the bread bin does indeed have fresh content - but alongside are two or three carrier bags full of the stuff which supermarkets are so clever at getting you to buy when you pop in for something totally unrelated. Seems ridiculous, but we all know how it happens. Since having a breadmaker, we’ve actually cut down on our trips to the supermarket and our opportunities for temptation. The machine probably paid for itself inside three or four months.

So, what sort of bread can the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker produce? There are seven main baking modes: “basic”, whole wheat, rye, french, italian, sandwich and gluten-free. Within each of these, however, there are many recipe variations, and you’re likely to come up with your own preferred ones too. The user guide gives seven pages of recipes, from a plain white loaf to pesto and pine nut or tomato focaccia loaves. It makes it look simple to throw in anything from passata to cep mushrooms, and indeed it is. Don’t forget that breadmakers like this do a great job of making dough too - if you master the pizza base recipe, you’ll never buy ones from the supermarket again. Finally, there’s a “bake only” mode if you want to use the machine to bake many types of cake. By this point however, as with many modern kitchen appliances, you probably need to take a step back and ask “what’s wrong with doing the traditional way, like using an oven?”

As a practical test for beginners, we gave the Panasonic SD255 Bread Maker to an experienced cook who had baked plenty of bread by hand before, but never used a breadmaking machine. We gave her a packet of bread mix - just to really make things simple - and the instruction manual. Our cook, by her own admission, isn’t the best at reading technical manuals. But she knows a good loaf of bread when she sees one. The good news is that the whole process generated just one observation: “is that it?”. Reading the instructions took 5 minutes, and preparing the mix took about 1 minute. Our cook instinctively went for the “quick bake” mode, so the loaf was ready just two hours later. And the results were spectacular! The bread was soft and evenly browned and delicious.

I do not think it’s worth investigating any further - go buy this one with confidence. There are lots more reviews at Amazon. If it’s available for under £100, grab yourself a little gem.